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GTK+ Continues To Become More X11-Agnostic

10-14-2010, 05:50 PM

Phoronix: GTK+ Continues To Become More X11-Agnostic

As good news for those of you interested in GTK+ applications on Mac OS X and other operating systems, or to even run such applications within a Wayland Display Server on Linux rather than an X Server, this tool-kit used by GNOME continues to become more X11-agnostic and easier to port...

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Does GTK have native file dialogs yet or is it still useless for cross-platform development? How about a global menu on Mac OS X? Or native icons?

Version 2.20 is a mess.

It's not useless for cross-platform development, I use it all the time.

File dialogs you get the standard GTK file dialog (you can design it with Glade, for example), not a Windows / OSX dialog, but it works fine. Remember, this is not Windows forms but GTK.

I use applications on Windows all the time that do not have the standard file dialog, or the standard look and feel, and they are native Windows applications. So I do not see a problem there, honestly. The Windows-world is full of applications that don't use the standard UI, and we get by just fine.

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It's not useless for cross-platform development, I use it all the time.

File dialogs you get the standard GTK file dialog (you can design it with Glade, for example), not a Windows / OSX dialog,

Oxymoron.

but it works fine.

For some definition of 'fine'.

Remember, this is not Windows forms but GTK.

Non sequitur. WinForms are not a cross-platform UI toolkit.

I use applications on Windows all the time that do not have the standard file dialog, or the standard look and feel, and they are native Windows applications. So I do not see a problem there, honestly. The Windows-world is full of applications that don't use the standard UI, and we get by just fine.

What about KDE or Mac OS X?

You might get by just fine with piss-poor porting jobs (say, Gimp), but more discerning users might not.

native icons - nope, never heard this feature request before

It's a real issue, though. GTK uses some Tango-based icon set and completely disregards what the underlying platform provides.

Yes, it's possible to run some GTK application on other operating systems but the toolkit provides a completely alien/non-native experience. It's not a good choice if cross-platform support is one of your core design goals.

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It's a real issue, though. GTK uses some Tango-based icon set and completely disregards what the underlying platform provides.

Yes, it's possible to run some GTK application on other operating systems but the toolkit provides a completely alien/non-native experience. It's not a good choice if cross-platform support is one of your core design goals.

On the other hand one could argue that it's good for cross platform consistency.

Comment

It's a real issue, though. GTK uses some Tango-based icon set and completely disregards what the underlying platform provides.

Yes, it's possible to run some GTK application on other operating systems but the toolkit provides a completely alien/non-native experience. It's not a good choice if cross-platform support is one of your core design goals.

You completely missed my point - In Windows, I have applications that also do not conform to the general UI guidelines, thus 'alienating' the user. In fact, every other application from a HW-vendor I install has completely different interface colors, controls and graphics (Audio control panel, WiFi app, and Samsung Kies are only a few that come to mind). Winamp, anyone?

What's the premise? Where's the conclusion? He contrasts the two toolkits and you respond by emphasizing the contrast, how does that demonstrate the non sequitur? Ironically, your response is a non sequitur.

It's a real issue, though. GTK uses some Tango-based icon set and completely disregards what the underlying platform provides.

I'd file this more under OSX design wank, than I would a serious usability concern. Tango is generic and obvious enough, that it poses neither an egregious crime against style, nor an impediment to use (unless we're permitting prima donnas who choose their apps based primarily on aesthetics, in which case, I hope they enjoy iOS and Android's cavalcade of novel UI styles).

I'd say there's also another good reason why file dialogues should be pluggable: the Gtk+ file picker/save dialogues don't even fit that well into Gnome, or Xfce. It'd be great if Gtk+ was flexible enough that nautilus and thunar could set their own dialogues - especially with the current HAL/GVFS conflicts with Xfce/Gtk+.